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NBC Sports And Turner Sports Acquire Rights To Wimbledon Championships Multi-Year Deal to Include a Record Number of Hours and First-Ever Basic Cable Coverage
The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, NBC Sports and Turner Sports have reached agreement on a multi-year contract for the exclusive American broadcast rights to the All England Lawn Tennis Championships, Wimbledon. The new contract takes effect with the 2000 Wimbledon, June 26-July 9, and will feature a record 124.5 hours of coverage, representing a 25 percent increase in total on-air coverage. The announcement was made today by Tim Phillips, Chairman of The All England Club, Dick Ebersol, Chairman, NBC Sports and Olympics, Mark Lazarus, President, Turner Sports, and Mark McCormack, Chairman and CEO, IMG. "We are delighted that our long partnership with NBC Sports is to continue and we also extend a warm welcome to Turner Sports," said Phillips. "Wimbledon is televised in 170 countries and fundamental to our choice of TV partners is the quality and quantity of their coverage. It is excellent that tennis enthusiasts will be so well served in the USA." "We are delighted to be able to continue our long relationship with the world's most prestigious tennis championships," said Ebersol. "For more than three decades we have regarded Wimbledon as one of the crown jewels of the NBC Sports schedule." "We're happy to be able to give American tennis fans more coverage of this world-class event than ever before, in a deal that further solidifies TNT's place as a big event network," said Lazarus. "An event with the rich tradition of Wimbledon adds to the lineup of important sports already on TNT, TBS Superstation, and now CNN/Sports Illustrated." The 89 hours of coverage on TNT and CNN/Sports Illustrated of the 2001 Wimbledon represent the first time the prestigious tennis championship will be available on basic cable. TNT will air 61 hours of primarily daytime coverage, and will program an additional 28 hours on CNN/Sports Illustrated, all in prime time. Wimbledon marks the first time CNN/Sports Illustrated, an all sports-news network, will air an event of any kind. This will mark NBC's 32nd consecutive year (1969-present) televising The Championships, Wimbledon. NBC will present 35.5 hours, beginning Saturday, July 1, and concluding with "Breakfast at Wimbledon" -- live coverage of the women's and men's finals, Saturday and Sunday, July 8 and 9. NBC's "Breakfast at Wimbledon," which began as an experiment in 1979 with live coverage of the men's singles finals was expanded in 1982 to include live coverage of the women's singles final. Since then, these telecasts have become a Wimbledon tradition. In April 1999, NBC Sports' 1998 coverage of Wimbledon was honored with the Emmy Award.
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